The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has accused the Electoral Commission of padding votes in various polling stations to help President Akufo-Addo win in the just ended 2020 general presidential elections.
According to the party, after the collation of the results, several polling stations recorded significant ballot calculation errors which favoured the incumbent party in the polls.
Addressing the media during a press briefing in Accra, the National Communications Officer of the party, Sammy Gyamfi intimated that, this formed part of the reasons that proved the Akufo-Addo government did not win the election adding that, these were attempts by the Electoral Commission to help the incumbent party win the polls.
He further elaborated his point where he showed images of some pink sheets from the Ashanti region which captured the supposed errors identified by the party.
” Ladies and gentlemen these are just a few of the pink sheets we are showing you and there are many of them available which we are willing to show you any day. These are figures from some areas in the Ashanti region and you can see the obvious padding of votes which saw candidate Akufo-Addo winning all and candidate Mahama having deductions in votes. And there are many of such padding across the country.”
He further disclosed that, over voting was another reason that shows that the New Patriotic Party (NPP), were not the winners of the Presidential elections. He disclosed that, some of the results collated did not match the numbers of voters in some constituencies.
He then accused the party of having in possession already thumb printed ballot papers prior to the elections.
He further reiterated and maintained the party’s claim that the elections were not fair, saying that the outcome of the results were fraudulent.
“The elections results announced by Jean Mensah and the Electoral Commission of Ghana is a fraudulent one, the whole process and the results, the outcome that has been publicized is completely flawed and we cannot accept that.”
Meanwhile, the Assembly Press in Accra has gazetted the 2020 Presidential election results declared by Mrs. Jean Mensa, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), who is also the Returning Officer of the presidential election.
This gives legal backing to the results as declared by the EC Chairperson and paves way for any person or group of persons interested in contesting it to do so at the law court.
The Commission was mandated by Constitutional Instrument (CI) 127, Regulation 44, Sub-regulation 11, to gazette the results, saying; “Without that, any case from a person or a group about the election results sent to court will be thrown away.”
“An instrument, which is executed under the hand of the Chairman of the Commission and under the seal of the Commission; and states that the person named in the Instrument was declared elected as the President of Ghana at the election, is prima facie evidence that the person named was elected.”
The Constitutional Instrument stated that the instrument referred to in sub-regulation 11 shall be published in the Gazette.